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Here in Denver, we’ve been digging out of a storm for the past few days. This also means we’ve been skiing and riding as much of the fluffy stuff as we can. Among the staff here in the shop we’ve laughed our way through fresh snow at Keystone, Vail and Loveland Pass. We’ve been covering each other’s shifts, and waking up early so we can come in a little late. This is shaping into a pretty good pre-New Year season.

We want to make a quick shout-out to the dude we turn to most often for our snow forecasts: Joel Gratz at OpenSnow.com. In case you’re not familiar with Open Snow, it’s a website run by skiers, for skiers (or riders, etc.). The catch is that the skiers who run this site are also meteorologists and they put a great effort towards figuring out where the snow will be, when it will be there, and what type of snow day we can expect on the slopes. Joel is the guy we turn to when we’re trying to decide if we’re suddenly going to get sick and hit the road at 6am for first chair. They offer content like this:

OpenSnow.com tells you where the snow will be, when it will be there and how good it will be.

Joel does a great job here in CO, and the Open Snow team is spread out all over the country. If you haven’t already, check it out.

Fogging will ruin your day. It will take the fluffiest snow and turn it into unusable water crystals. Fogged up goggles transform a bluebird day on your family vacation into a storm of cursing and disappointment.

Just to be clear: Prescription eyewear makes your goggle set-up more prone to fogging. Suddenly, lenses are centimeters closer to the source of heat and moisture and the difference is substantial. But this just means there are certain steps to take and things to keep in mind:

The further the prescription lenses can sit from your face, the better. This is why goggle inserts are superior to wearing goggles over your prescription glasses. Prescription glasses inherently sit closer to your eyes than goggle inserts, so not only do you bend and ruin them by jamming them under your goggles, but it’s more vulnerable to fogging.

An anti-fog coating should be measured by its function not by its price. We’ve tested dozens of anti-fog treatments and the best one we’ve found costs $10 for a bottle.

Ventilation is the name of the game. The Smith Turbo Fan goggles have a built-in ventilation system. On one hand it’s a fancy goggle, on the other hand it eliminates fogging. No one is forcing you to get a goggle with a fan in it. But they’re available and they work.

Behavior matters. Don’t put your goggles on your head when you’re on the chairlift. Don’t rub more snow into the lens to try to get rid of the fogging.

If you have questions about fogging, or any other goggle-related issues, call or write. We’re here to help.

Here at Goggle Rx we try to keep the convo focused on goggles, on snow, on mountains, etc. But, what we do here isn’t simply goggles. We make custom prescription sports lenses, whether it’s to load into a goggle insert or to load into an Oakley. (like this: Oakley hand-milled lens edge). It’s our expertise in sports eyewear in general that let’s us be leaders in the prescription goggle world.

This being said, the folks at the Gear Caster gave us a really cool review last year. They’re a great gear website that we turn to when researching new gear, and so it was humbling to see Sports Optical featured in their space. There were some great quotes, but our favorite was: “Honestly, in this constantly connected world of instant gratification, I was surprised when I heard the waiting time. And then the glasses arrived. I would have waited 3 months. The lenses are superb, easily among the best I ever tried in any type of frame. As the Sports Optical team explained, the lenses are all hand shaped – this craftsmanship gives them firm control over various aspects of each lens and the resulting quality is obvious.”

Third day this week one of the Sports Optical crew has made it up to Loveland for a few runs before work. Cold early morning parking lot warmed up into five runs through the upper mountain snowfields. Then back to the shop by 11. Or 11:08.

Welcome to Goggle Rx. We’re a division of Sports Optical, a prescription lenscrafting house in Denver, CO that specializes in custom, prescription sports eyewear.

Being here in Colorado, we ski as much as we can. So do our customers. And over the past 20 years we’ve become experts at what it takes to make prescription ski goggles in a way that let’s you see well and have long, fog-free days on the snow. In this blog we’ll do our best to cover all things related to prescription snow goggles. This means we’ll explain the reason a lens fogs and what Smith Optics does to their lenses to prevent fogging, but we’ll also post ski clips and stories that inspire us to get out into the mountains and ski or ride.